BANGI, Sept 2 (Bernama) — Health security must no longer be treated purely as a medical or public-health issue, but as a strategic national capability essential to defending the country's sovereignty under prolonged pressure, said Armed Forces Health Services director-general Lt Gen Datuk Dr Zulkeffeli Mat Jusoh.
Dr Zulkeffeli stressed that a nation's defence relies directly on the biological resilience of its citizens.
"A nation that cannot protect the biological functioning of its people cannot protect its economy, sustain its military readiness, preserve public confidence or defend its sovereignty under prolonged pressure," he said.
He said this in his keynote address at the 39th Scientific Meeting of the Malaysian Society of Pharmacology and Physiology (MSPP) and the 1st Advances in Research & Clinical Medicine of Today (ARMy) Symposium here today.
He pointed out that recent global crises have demonstrated how biological threats move faster than administrative institutions and policy frameworks, underscoring the urgency of bridging the gap between scientific laboratories and operational environments.
He cautioned that scientific achievements lose their strategic value if they fail to function under severe operational stress, such as during extreme heat, high altitude, resource limitations or disrupted supply chains.
"A therapy that works only in ideal conditions is a scientific achievement. A therapy that works under operational stress is a resilience capability," he said, urging researchers and defence planners to focus on translation velocity, the speed at which basic discovery is converted into field-ready countermeasures.
Dr Zulkeffeli outlined four main structural frictions currently hindering national health response, namely speed asymmetry, operational physiology gaps, data-to-decision delays and institutional seams.
To overcome these, he called for a mission-driven translational health security network that brings together academia, healthcare providers, defence logistics and industry to continuously shorten the ‘five clocks of resilience’: the time to detect, understand, counter, deploy and recover.
The two-day joint conference, organised by Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) through its Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health (FPKP) alongside MSPP, was launched by UPNM deputy vice-chancellor (Academic and International Affairs) Prof Norhana Abdul Halim today.
Carrying the theme "Bridging Life's Mechanics & Therapeutics for Health Security & Resilience", the gathering brings together defence, medical and scientific experts to tackle key areas, including biosecurity, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRNe) medical readiness, artificial intelligence-driven healthcare and human health in extreme environments.
Key presentations scheduled at the conference include military flight physiology in hypobaric and High-G conditions by Col Dr Zulkefley Mohammad of the RMAF Institute of Aviation Medicine and CBRNe emergency response frameworks by Dr Hazlina Mohamad Noh of Selayang Hospital.
— BERNAMA